Last week, a vicious rumor ravaged the web that claimed popular singer Jon Bon Jovi had been found dead. After some investigation, it was confirmed that he was actually alive and well. So the question remained: who started such a rumor and why? Well, today that question has been answered. The culprit has stepped forward and admitted his blame, along with his reasoning behind the rumor.

The man responsible is Philadelphia, Pennsylvania metal band Minutia vocalist Jeffrey Goho, who on December 19 posted a fake press release on his WordPress blog breaking the news of Bon Jovi's "death," stating he was found in a coma in an Asbury Park hotel.

Goho says he made up the fib because he was tired of hearing about Bon Jovi and his many successes, and felt that it was all superficial and taking away from the things that really matter, the article said:

 I'm in a band as well, and I was going into the recording studio, and we had talked about how the music industry just started taking a turn into crazy new worlds that no one, really, can assess," said Goho. Long story short, I was talking to my band members on their down time, and we got so worked up in the conversation, I just kind of took the liberty and started (the rumor), because I was so irritated.

All I heard was 'Bon Jovi this,' 'Bon Jovi's starting a restaurant.' What was the latest one? The Advil commercial (featuring Bon Jovi)? It was like, 'Jeez, (Bon Jovi) was a household name due to the music, not the business.' So I'm not proud of it. I'm getting a lot of backlash from it, but as stupid as it sounds, that's how it started. I just had a blurb and went with it.

Of course with this little trick came a huge backlash, as Goho has received numerous hate emails and spam following the incident. He has since made a statement, and explained how he never thought the rumor would spread like it did. Obviously he doesn't know the power or rumor, Twitter and the Internet...come on dude.

I started this whole little thing, he said, and then, what I noticed, a few of the hate mails I got were actually saying that I was doing the same thing that fueled my initial reason to tweet it, because they were calling me a businessman, said Goho. And I was like, No, no, no, I didn’t do this for a business endeavor, I’m irritated. So I almost kind of hurt myself.

Ultimately, the more thought that I gave to it after reading everyone’s responses I realized that his [Bon Jovi's] endeavors, his business endeavors, have actually made the tri-state area prosper, hence more musicians have more available places to go, more people to play to, and I was quite wrong, Goho said.

It wasn’t initially the case. Now, I’m not going to lie either, I’ve also gotten some fans out of this, Goho said. That was unexpected. I mean, none of this was expected, so I’m not going to sit here and complain about it, but it wasn’t the initial reason. So with all the band, there’s a little good that came out of it, I guess, for publicity purposes, but it wasn’t my initial intention. I never really thought it would get out of Pennsylvania.

Nice save Goho! I guess now he'll think twice before he puts up another rumor of any kind. I won't be surprised if soon we see the fake (or real) news of Goho's death in the music headlines! God forbid!

What do you think of this news and his actions? Do you think people overreacted?

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